Sweden
encouraged to further sharpen its tools for preventing corruption

Press Release

Strasbourg, 12 November 2013– Swedish
measures to prevent corruption among members of parliament, judges and
prosecutors appear to be quite effective in practice. However, there is
still room for improvement – particularly with regard to conflicts of
interest among parliamentarians.

These are the main
findings of an evaluation report published today by the Council of Europe’s
Group of States against Corruption (GRECO).

The report notes that Sweden has traditionally been considered one of the
least corrupt countries in Europe, and that perceptions of corruption among
parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors are relatively low. Awareness of
the risks of corruption and conflicts of interest seems to have risen over
the years but could benefit from being further stimulated.

GRECO
therefore recommends drawing up a code of conduct for parliamentarians, as
well as further developing the rules on conflicts of interest, gifts and
declarations of assets.

GRECO also recommends that measures should
be taken to offer proper guidance to all judges on ethics, expected conduct
and preventing corruption and conflicts of interest, as well as to ensure
the independence, impartiality and integrity of lay judges. Finally,
prosecutors would benefit from a set of clear ethical standards, backed up
by specialised training.

Today’s report has been published with the
agreement of the Swedish authorities, which should report back on measures
taken to implement the eight recommendations included in the report by the
end of April 2015. GRECO will then assess the extent to which its
recommendations have been implemented through a further “compliance report”
in the second half of 2015.